Jigoku: psychotronic cut-up video

Quite a freak-out, eh? It's the trailer for "Jigoku", UK DJs/producers Lovely Jon and Cherrystones' cut-up coup of exotic horror flicks and psychedelia. The limited-edition eponymous DVD is based on a live video mix they've performed at the ICA, Other Cinema, and elsewhere. From Bleep Blog:

Joel Martin –What is your personal interpretation of ‘Jigoku’? I know that this translates as ‘Hell’ in Japanese and is also the title of Nobuo Nakagawa’s cinematic vision of Hades, also titled ‘Jigoku’ (1960)?
Lovely Jon – Nakagawa’s classic is a major influence but the name kinda brings up everything we’re about – that intense visual hit you experience when seeing a crazy ‘out there’ movie in the middle of the night where all the rules are broken and cohesion is thrown out of the window: you’re left with this suffocating beast you can’t escape from....
JM - Can you recommend some personal film favourites for the uninitiated viewer that fully capture the essence of ‘Jigoku’?
LJ - Christ – have you got a year?! Jose Marins (Coffin Joe): Brazil’s king of horror is a huge influence – his movies are unique in that he made these celluloid paintings from hell for peanuts but his vision usurped the impoverished budgets he had to work with. We’re also huge old school kung fu fans and love Asian vampires: The Dragon Lives Again is an insane Bruce Lee rip where the king goes to hell and encounters Dracula; The Mummy; Emmanuelle; The Man with no Name; James Bond and Popeye (!) – that’s one totally fucked up movie, Rasta!
CS – Try these: I Drink Your Blood (D E Durston); Prey (Norman J Warren); The Boogeyman (Ulli Lommel); Death Laid An Egg (Giulio Questi); Blue Eyes Of The Broken Doll (Carlos Aured); The Thrill Killers (Ray Dennis Steckler); Blindman (Ferdinando Baldi); House With Laughing Windows (Pupi Avati) and Seven Commandments Of Kung Fu (Shih Hao Ko).

"Quiet Village interviews Jigoku"

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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Anonymous

For their live editing work, it still looks like an unparticular excerpt from any Jayne Mansfield movie (ca. 1974?) With Jigoku Shoujo (and reviews so you don’t undersell an older or non-TV audience) (and they read subtitles while taking in the original voice acting work, if you want the merit to not bleach out) and plenty of Hokuto-no-Ken-derivative movies out there, there’s no reason to pick from this far, far dalliance from Glam Disco Yogi Buddhist hell. Or is there?

I’d just reread a tale like Evergreen (how exuberant its’ boughs/and how scarlet…) or How Maugdalyana Rescued His Mother From Hell or one of the black box adaptations.
Anonymous

ikanai hou ga yokatta
Jesse M.

Those who enjoy trippy horror from the 60s/70s might also like this Scissor Sisters video for their song ‘Invisible Light’ which seems strongly inspired by those kinds of movies…
YarbroughFair

Japanese Seizure.
Jesse M.

out of stock already, curses! Can anyone identify any of the clips in the trailer?
Anonymous

What film does the guy flying through a dark kaleidescope tunnel at 3:20 come from? Anybody know?
- Jesse M.
  
  I was particularly curious about that shot, and the shot at the beginning of the person holding weird claw-like hands up to the Sun while some hippie looks on in slow motion, and the one about the guy stepping through a mirror (leaving trails behind him) and then turning around to reveal a knife in his hand…
  - lewis stoole
    
    the mirror scene and some of the tunnel stuff, and the woman doing trailly trippy stuff
    is from
    “simon, king of the witches”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fax1uhZxvEA
    
    some of this stuff is from coffin joe, like
    “awakening of the beast” (i couldn’t find the right clip here but believe it would be the end shots which are in color with an lsd freakout–the rest of the movie being in b/w)
    and, “hallucinations of a deranged mind”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sRZqcD7nGQ
    
    another poster inferred this as being a riff off a kenneth anger vibe. i had the same feeling with “invocation of my demon brother” in mind. the odd thing about that film is that if you start playing sympathy for the devil right when the albino warlock starts lifting his hand, the transitions are in perfect sync with the song and actually makes it better. maybe kenneth wanted that music for his short rather than mick jagger fooling around with a moog?
    - David Pescovitz
      
      @Lewis and @Baron, thanks for these suggestions! I don’t know anything about this genre at all but the films you mentioned look fun!
Anonymous

three words. mater suspiria vision.
2k

urge to scoff Fry’s Orange Creme bar increasing!
Baron Karza

Netflix doesn’t carry “Psyched By The 4-D Witch”, but mu bro got his copy cheap from a site called Oldies.com, on a double-bill disc from Something Weird Video with “Monster-A-Go-Go”, which I haven’t seen.

Another good weird one is “Dr. Caligari” though it has something of a plot, but a fun treat for Babylon 5 fans…
mathdemon

The annoying guy at 2:25 deserves a backhand slap. Just sayin’…
Anonymous

The drug scene at the end could be from Dev Anand’s “Hare Rama Hare Krishna”. If not, it’s very similar..
EeyoreX

So what you’re saying is that The Venture Bros is dropping the animation and is shooting the show in live-action for season 5 then?
Fine with me!
Anonymous

Reminded me of some of the Grails videos. Is this the same video person?
zyodei

You know, I’m a big believer in the importance of the subconscious mind. That the great majority of the mind is beneath the surface, away from our everyday awareness, but hugely influencing what we do and how we feel.

As such, man, I’ve got no desire at all to watch a video with a bunch of crazy editing stuffing a bunch of scary imagery into the back of my brain! Thank you, and it’s a fine bit of work, but I couldn’t watch more than 20 seconds of it!
braininavat

These guys need to watch some Kenneth Anger.
just sayin’
danegeld

yeah I recognise the lady climbing through the mirror from my childhood TV viewing. I’m pretty sure it’s a clip from the kind of film you show to primary school children in the UK in the 80′s. Either that or my English teacher was a serious acid fiend and I just never cottoned on.
Joush42

the only thing i’ve see that like this is the Japanese movie house. crazy stuff man……..
- Jesse M.
  
  Yeah, “House” by Nobuhiko Obayashi is a really fantastically weird and awesome film, just came out on a Criterion Collection DVD, everyone who likes strange obscure stuff should check it out! And “Holy Mountain” which Baron Karza suggested is amazing too…I’ll definitely check out “psyched by the 4-D witch”. And I recently stumbled upon this review of a Bollywood horror movie called “Pyasa Shaitan” which looks very promising based on the stills and description…not available on amazon or netflix but it looks like you can buy it on VCD here or just watch it on youtube…
Anonymous

these guys have been slugging away for a very long time and its great that they are finally getting recognition. Back in the 90s no one was doing this, no one at all, and then very slowly people saw what Jon and Gareth were doing in little underground clubs and parties and word got around.as someone who was part of jigoku in the early days and having known Jon for nealry 25 years I can tell you that Jon and Gareth have a huge knowledge of film.
….and on the distant horizon a possible reunion gig with Alessandro Alessandrone at the ICA that we did 10 years ago….if it happens will be in Sept 2011
Regards
Stephen Dray
Baron Karza

Reminds me of a film I saw yesterday at my brother’s place: “Psyched By The 4-D Witch” from 1972, a purely nonsensical psychedelic trip movie with almost no plot, all the voices are done as voiceover narration over very trippy insane visuals, lightshows, sex, early 70′s hippy satanism, weird costumes and a snappy theme song! If you liked the link above, you’ll love 4-D Witch. I’d also recommend “Holy Mountain” and “That Darn Cat”.
Vinayak

1:07 to 1:18 – girls with the skulls – is from Dev Anand’s Bullet (1976).
pjk

meh. paula dean on ludes was much, much more terrifying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1PsDyhNFBI
GT

Boring. Amateurish. OK for an 8th grader.
MacBookHeir

“…Cherrystones’ cut-up coup of exotic horror flicks and psychedelia…”

At least you didn’t use the dreaded “mash up” term…